And it was at that age...

I have always wondered what makes poetry tick. It's such a drab art form- nothing concrete, nothing tangible. Every verse, couplet, sonnet is open to interpretation. Poetry stretches the phrase “to each his own” to the max. You can take whatever you want to from a poem. Can you ever guess, come even close to taking a pot-shot at, what a poet was thinking when he penned a line? For someone who’s been brought up on a staple diet of literary fiction, poetry baffles me. I find it a tad difficult to appreciate its various forms, the myriad genres, the numerous meanings.

What, though, one cannot deny is that poetry is beautiful. You just cannot escape it. It’s everywhere and so really, there is no point in running away from it, and that’s exactly wherein the splendor of poetry lies- that it will find you, and as Pablo Neruda so wonderfully puts it- And it was at that age...Poetry arrived in search of me.

He, of course, was talking about how poetry arrived for his writing; I’ll just change the meaning, to my convenience, and apply it to my reading.

Pablo Neruda was the pen name the Chilean writer and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. If all it takes to write soulful poetry is a long real name, am changing my name to Niyati Revarto Reshmaiyyes Budhvaro!

Neruda was the winner of the 1971 Nobel Prize for literature; he was an accomplished poet who skillfully handled many poetic styles. I came across Neruda quite late, to my dislike, but then when one has never really made an effort to be acquainted with the field of poetry, one can’t really complain enough or much!

It was, in essence, like a rush- the rush of discovering Neruda. Below are few of my favorite lines from the little that I have unearthed of Neruda:

From the Book of Questions:

What does autumn go on paying for with so much yellow money?
In what language does rain fall over tormented cities?
Tell me, is the rose naked or is that her only dress?
Why do trees conceal the splendor of their roots?
Is the sun the same as yesterdays or is this fire different from that fire?
How does rumor of the sky smell when the blue of water sings?
What did the tree learn from the earth to be able to talk with the sky?
Where did the full moon leave its sack of flour tonight?
And at whom does rice smile with infinitely many white teeth?
Why don't inanimate things do something?
What will they say about my poetry who never touched my blood?
Do tears not yet spilled wait in small lakes?
Whom can I ask what I came to make happen in this world?

Personification is something Neruda is a natural at. And with just questions, he conveys half-hidden answers, long-lost conversations, and implied, unsaid feelings. My question to you Mr. Neruda is: What can I give to have an imagination as yours?

From Statues:

May whatever breaks
be reconstructed by the sea
with the long labor of its tides.
So many useless things
which nobody broke
but which got broken anyway.

From Too Many Names:

No one can claim the name of Pedro,
nobody is Rosa or Maria,
all of us are dust or sand,
all of us are rain under rain.
They have spoken to me of Venezuelas,
of Chiles and of Paraguays;
I have no idea what they are saying.
I know only the skin of the earth
and I know it is without a name.

When I sleep every night,
what am I called or not called?
And when I wake, who am I
if I was not while I slept?

I have a mind to confuse things,
unite them, bring them to birth,
mix them up, undress them,
until the light of the world
has the oneness of the ocean,
a generous, vast wholeness,
a crepitant fragrance.

I particularly like these lines above- a mind to confuse things. Maybe that’s exactly what the mind is good at, at getting confused and muddled. Mine certainly is, and I’m happy that my mind has been brilliantly described by Pablo!

From I Like For You to be Still:

And let me talk to you with your silence
that is bright as a lamp, simple as a ring.
You are like the night, with its stillness and constellations.
Your silence is that of a star, as remote and candid.

I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
distant and full of sorrow as though you had died.
One word then, one smile, is enough.
And I am happy, happy that it's not true.

Neruda is wickedly famous for his erotically charged poems. In fact, Twenty Love Poems and a Desperate Song, is his most critically acclaimed and best-known work. His passionate love sagas are set to love’s yearning, its loss, its damage, its death.

From For Everybody:

It's nobody's problem
Not for them, nor for you,
And if you listen well, in the rain,
You will be able to hear
That I come back and go away and stay.
And you'll know when I must leave.

If my words aren't heard
Don't doubt that I'm the one I was.
There is no silence that doesn't end.
When the moment arrives, wait for me,
And let everyone know that I'm coming
To the street, with my violin.

There is no silence that doesn’t end. Can this be true? It’s so difficult to believe, easier said than done. But then that’s what the maestro is so good at- at filling you with an all-consuming hope that maybe, just maybe, all silences will break.

From here and there, still all his:

They may mow down all the flowers, but they can't stop spring.
Someday, somewhere - anywhere, unfailingly, you'll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.
I don't have a never, I don't have an always.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

All I can wish for is that this rush lasts a lifetime!

P.S.- My favorite poem has not been listed here, Neruda, after all, does deserve some privacy!